So basically I’ve never seen a Charlie
Chaplin film. Obviously I’m aware who Charlie Chaplin is – that black and white
guy with the little moustache who tried to conquer Europe – but I’ve never
actually seen one of his films.
Also, I have a prejudice against elderly
comedy. As anyone who has sat grimacing through the ‘light relief’ in a
Shakespeare play will tell you, comedy doesn’t age well.
The opening scene of City Lights did not
bode well. The kazoo voices were a worrying sign. Admirers may mourn many
things about silent cinema, but I don’t imagine kazoo voices are one of them.
Fortunately it’s uphill from there. I
admired the simplicity of the plot – Little Tramp falls in love with Blind
Flower Girl and pretends to be rich in order to woo her and save her from
poverty. As with many modern comedy scripts, its basic function is to be a washing
line for Chaplin to hang comic set-pieces on.
And those set-pieces are without exception
brilliantly realised. It’s a thing of wonder to see physical comedy – in many
ways the purest and most universal form of comedy – come to life with such
precision.
The first set-piece to make me actually
laugh was the Tramp saving the Millionaire from suicide. The fact that the film
incorporates dark themes such as suicide, poverty and homelessness adds to the
laughs – it feels like there’s something real at stake, something to be won and
lost throughout the film. The set-pieces at a nightclub, a party at the
Millionaire’s house, and of course the boxing ring are also a joy to watch. The
sheer level of technical skill on display boggles the mind.
Most of the film is shot in long-shots,
there are only a few close-ups, and those by and large are for sentimental
scenes. I’m guessing that close-ups only really came to prominence in film during
the sound era, when dialogue made the psychology of the characters and what
they were (or weren’t) revealing in their faces so important.
The title is misleading – there aren’t many
city lights on show, and exactly what city we’re in seems hard to identify, as
the film seems to be entirely shot on Hollywood backlots.
From a screenwriting point of view, the
relationship between the Tramp and the Millionaire impressed me the most. The
Millionaire is a comic take on Jekyll and Hyde – he considers the Tramp his
best friend and showers him with money when drunk, and has no idea who he is when
sober. It’s a great conceit, brilliantly played by Chaplin and Harry Myers. Myers has my favourite
throwaway gag when he literally throws away a photo of his ex-wife out of shot.
The more famous relationship between Tramp
and Flower Girl I found less entrancing. On first encountering the Flower Girl,
my wife Wendy wondered whether she was really blind or faking. A deception like
that would have given the character at least two dimensions, but evidently the
budget of the film could only stretch to one.
Overall it was good to fill in a hole in my
cinematic CV and have a laugh while doing so. Although I’m surer than ever that
the use of the kazoo voice should be restricted purely to the teacher in
Charlie Brown cartoons.
